We began by shopping for baby monitors like anyone else would if they had dozens of hours to do it. The process started with a long list of best sellers at Amazon, Walmart, Target, BuyBuy Baby, Babies“R”Us, and Costco. We found monitors recommended in editorial reviews, such as PCMag, Reviewed.com, and Tom’s Guide. We also read a ton of discussion among parents in the Amazon reviews—what features they found especially useful, and what problems tend to occur. Thinking of all this, and comparing those concerns against the things we’ve appreciated and despised in our own years of monitor use, we developed the following selection criteria:
This is the #1 best baby monitor on our list, and on many of the major baby product websites. It's the Cadillac (or Lexus?) of baby monitors and has tons of fantastic features. In our testing, we found the video display to be very high quality during both daytime and nighttime conditions. The audio was very high quality as well, and the two-way intercom lets you talk to your baby or sing them a little goodnight lullaby without getting out of bed. We also thought it had great range and good battery life when it's not plugged in. We took it into the back and front yards, without any issues with reception. Bells and whistles abound: this unit has the remotely adjustable pan/tilt/zoom camera, integrated two-way audio intercom system (just push the talk button), baby room temperature monitor, the ability to do digital audio only (screen off for nighttime), and encrypted wireless communication. That adjustable pan allows you to pivot the camera remotely up to 270-degrees left-right, and the adjustable tilt allows you to pivot the camera up to 120-degrees up and down. Super convenient when the camera is positioned close up and your baby moves to the other side of the crib, or the camera gets accidentally bumped or repositioned during the day. The Infant Optics DXR-8 video baby monitor is also expandable up to 4 cameras to place in various locations in your home, and you just press a button on the receiver to toggle between the various camera locations. You can't see all of them at once on the screen of the handheld monitor, but it was easy enough to toggle through the different camera feeds. We also found that the menu is very user-friendly and it's easy to take advantage of all the advanced functions. But you will pay for all this greatness, coming in around $165-175. There is also a relatively inexpensive add-on wide angle lens (see the wide angle lens here) that gives you a much wider viewing angle (170-degrees, which is nearly the same angle as your eyes) to accommodate up-close scenes (like if you place the camera along the edge of the crib). Overall, this is a truly excellent, highly reliable baby monitor with some great features, a great reputation, and is the perfect trade-off for screen size versus portability and battery life. The parents who tested this baby monitor for us fell in love with it, and all had great things to say in their reviews, including its reliability, quality, ease of use, and the accuracy of the temperature display. We definitely can't say that for all of the baby monitors on this list! There is only one con that we found with this baby monitor: an audible beep when you turn the unit off (only on the base unit, not on the camera), which might wake your partner when you quickly turn the unit on/off just to check on your baby in the middle of the night. But that's pretty minor and only one of our testing parents brought it up in their review. Also, according to our Facebook followers the newest version no longer has that beep (we're getting a new testing unit now). In our opinion, this baby monitor passed our testing with flying colors, and we think it's worth every penny! Interested? You can check out the Infant Optics DXR-8 here. Want something about half the price with fewer features? Check out the earlier version of this baby monitor: the Infant Optics DXR-5, also a great option for a little less cash.
We prefer RF monitors to Wi-Fi, but if you’re seeking the latter, we don’t recommend getting the Ezviz Mini, the Palermo Wi-Fi Video Baby Monitor, or the LeFun C2, all of which Amazon reviewers report have connectivity issues, among other problems. We dismissed two other Wi-Fi monitors we tested—the Arlo Baby by Netgear and the Evoz Glow Baby Monitor—for being harder to set up than the iBaby Wi-Fi monitor. They were not notably better than the iBaby in some other way, and they share the other significant shortcomings of Wi-Fi monitors as a category.
Winner of this year’s JPMA innovation award for safety, the Nanit Smart Baby Monitor is an over-the-crib Wi-Fi video monitor that uses computer vision technology to track a baby’s sleep habits/patterns and provide data-crazed parents with stats and customized sleep tips in the morning, most of which are written by medical professionals. The only catch is that to receive these reports and tips, you need to pay $100 a year for Nanit Insights, the company’s subscription-based service. For parents who’d rather not pay the monthly fee, Nanit is still a sleek HD video monitor with night vision, one-way audio, and a soft glow LED nightlight.
From a pure imaging standpoint, night vision is vital for watching your baby sleep from another room, and is standard for most baby monitors. Motorized pan and tilt (which lets you swivel the camera from afar) isn't quite as common, but is very welcome if you have a toddler and want to scan an entire room. High-definition is a nice plus, but you don't need the highest-resolution sensor to keep tabs on your baby—most of the monitors we test use 720p cameras rather than 1080p.
This video baby monitor streams real-time footage to a 3.5" color display without connecting to the internet. The product’s battery will last around six hours if the display is always on but can last up to 10 on standby, and it’s range is up to 700 feet, though parents note it doesn’t reliably transmit a signal through numerous walls. In addition to providing high-quality video, the camera has an alarm function, two-way talk, a temperature monitor, and night vision. You can remotely adjust the camera’s angle or zoom with the controller, and if you want to use it as a regular baby monitor, you can turn off the video function.
Beyond security, Wi-Fi monitors have other disadvantages. In our tests, connectivity was more of an issue with Wi-Fi monitors than it was with RF monitors. We tested our Wi-Fi monitors on two separate routers and consistently had problems—we’d often lose the connection some time in the night and not even realize that the monitor had disconnected until morning. This happened with all three Wi-Fi models we tested. We never really felt confident relying on any of the connected monitors overnight, despite the fact that the modem and router were literally on the other side of a wall from the monitor. Other owners (like this one) have had the same issues.
This monitor comes with a 2.4" color screen that connects to its camera over a secure, interference-free connection, providing you with video up to 900 feet away. It boasts a two-way talk system and night vision, as well as several extra features like temperature monitoring, voice-activation mode, 2x zoom and more. The manufacturer doesn’t specify how long the battery on this video baby monitor lasts, but reviewers say you can get around six hours of continuous use from it.

This monitor offers lots of convenient features. Don’t have the best view of your baby? Use the monitor to remotely pan, tilt or zoom the camera without having to go back into the nursery. Fussy baby? Press a button to play lullabies. Need the camera to move from your bedroom to the nursery? No problem: this freestanding monitor can be set on top of a dresser or grip onto shelves and brackets. You can also unplug it and use it in another room for up to three hours on a single charge. And there’s a room temperature display. But the most impressive feature is its 1,000-foot range—the highest of all cameras on this list. That means you can hear your little one’s every chirp even if you’re hanging out in your backyard.